during the dot-com bust and economic downturn in 2001 , CISCO’s sales plunged 30% and it was stuck with a huge inventory,which it ultimately decided to write off at the tune of $2.2billion as CISCO stock fell to a record low at $13.6 ( from a $82 in 2000) However as compared to other networking companies ” which produced similar ” products like routers,networking and other enterprise systems ” CISCO lost enormous money ” and was one of the talking points across the industry for its huge losses during that time And one of the chief reasons was that CISCO relied big time on its state of art “virtual software ” and expected ” the demand to rise when other networking companies expected to decline However, its inventory and forecasting technology did not take into account economic and monetary changes and nor it was designed to capture a macroeconomic downturn. CISCO overreliance on forecasting technology led people to ” rely only on technology” as people became complacent and the company failed to take the the factor of human judgement and human intervention which were both undervalued Looking back on this incident “CISCO CEO” john Chambers says, ” we never built out forecasting model to anticipate something of this magnitude”. “But it taught us a lot of things.. as we realised that we in order to be perfect we lost out the ” human” element across our supply chain”

How Religent technologies aims to solve the biggest headace of retail chains

While most enterprise customers are well versed with the issues that plague their supply chain inventor problems a have some kind of solution to tackle compliance. However its the small and the mid market retail stores and chains for whom managing real time inventory remains a perpetual consistent, made more acute by lack of investment on an kind of predictive analytic engine or that gives them what they need, instead of having to buy the ” off the shelf solutions ” used by big and enterprise customers

This is where start ups like Retigence comes in, based out of Bangalore ,India we at Retigence believe that only real time number crunching technology can solve the acute and ferquency of the computation associated with predicting inventory distortion

Wal-Mart continues its spate of investment and acquisition across ” ecommerce supply chain and a analytics vertical’ as it acquired” PunchTab” a software platform that helps big retailers like Walmart and Sam’s Club to better understand and engage with customers in a unified way online, on mobile and in physical stores.The SaaS PunchTabbased is software-as-a-service platform empowering retail and CPG brands to engage consumers and gain actionable insights

“As part of the acquisition, six PunchTab technologists will join @WalmartLabs and we’ll also be acquiring PunchTab’s technology. We’ll use the technology to enhance our existing ‘customer relationship management’ tools, or the technology behind how we reach customers across e-mail, on our websites, on mobile phones and in our physical stores,” said Jeremy King, head of WalmartLabs.

This is the 15th acquisition by WalmartLabs in the past four years for Amazon.Punchtab was Founded by Mehdi Ait Oufkir along with five software engineers who will be join the customer acquisition and retention team at WalmartLabs

the top 5 factors that play a big role on demand and supply distortion : Buying and Planning issues are the biggest bottleneck which new start ups like bangalore based start up Retigence is trying to solve

In a recent IndustryWeek article titled “The Dynamic Supply Chain,” Mark Pearson of Accenture makes the statement that: 70% of executives who responded to a recent Accenture survey expressed concern about their inability to predict future performance, and more than 80% worried about the overall resilience of their supply chains in the face of unrelenting market challenges.

This reflects a very common problem across industries where there is a demand and supply distortion. Markets determine consumer behavior which in turn reflects buying patterns and inventory management patterns. Historically the retail industry has consistently been obsessed with footfalls and sales.. while left the inventory managers to the floor managers.

While this would be a perfect solution in an ideal world where demand and supply went hand in hand, or if the elasticity of production vs fulfillment was directly proportional which could be churned out by a scientific formula based on historical consumer trends assuming all other factors were constant.

However with changing demographics, changing consumer tastes and advent of modern retail and intrusive media channels amidst the plethora of digital distribution channels including online retail.. inventory management has become too important to be left to only the Inventory shop floor manager.

However the digital challenge is not new .For over a decade, retailers have struggled with getting omnichannel in place…previously, the mere fact that you had a website and a mobile app was enough to be a true omnichannel player.However today an mobile app and a website are hygiene factors.

A capable real time demand and forecasting engine by which businesses can align their inventory with real time demand is the need of modern retail which new start ups like Retigence are trying to solve

How retail chains manage inventory dataThe state of retail demand and forecasting

With the spiraling growth of eCommerce and online retail.. Its imperative to have the right inventory forecasting tools for enterprises as well as mid and small size retail The importance of having an accurate predictive real time forecast has increased significantly.

In today’s age of hyper demand over the top marketing consumers are less tolerant of an empty shelf when they have virtually instant access to pricing and product
By spending less time on managing your product inventory, you have more time to focus on sales and marketing

The business loss due to lack of predictive retail inventory analytic software

Due to lack of predictive and accurate scientific retail inventory forecast it become significantly more difficult to accurately forecast demand due to:

Retigent technologies aims to solve the biggest headache of retail chains by aligning their Inventory with Real time demand

Bangalore-based IT and services startup Retigence Technologies has raised an undisclosed amount from venture fund investment group Omnivore Partners” in lieu of a minority stake, according to a recent report from economic times and VCC circle

The funding received would be utilised by Retigence for research and development efforts, including launching new products globally apart from “marketing their Predictive Analytics engine PRAN

Retigence technologies was founded in 2010 by Srinibas Behera Retigence provides business intelligence solutions for retail chains through inventory optimization system.Among the basic pain points for retail chains has been either stock out( no stocks avaiable ) or they are left with a high inventory. Retigence provides a Analytics engine that can deliver accurate inventory forecasting in real time

Retail inventory forecasting is a kind of double edged sword.While if a retailer has low inventory he will be unable to meet consumer demand , on the other hand an excess of inventory would leave them saddled with extra inventory.which has to be kept at the warehouses , which again has a cost involved with it.. Subsequently this mismatch between demand and supply across the supply chain becomes too huge to manage for retailers

This creates a huge backlog across the retailers supply chain which restrict retailers to get timely and accurate information on their sales, stock turn and customer demand. The PRAN™ is designed to give retailers insight into their inventory performance and enable them to maximize sales, profit and inventory availability.

Bangalore-based IT and services startup Retigence Technologies has raised an undisclosed amount from early-stage agri-tech focused investment fund Omnivore Partners in lieu of a minority stake, according to a statement.

The funding received would be utilised by Retigence for research and development efforts, launching new products and targetting global retailers and brands

Omnivore Partners, a venture capital firm focused on tech companies in food and agriculture space, is picking up a significant minority stake in Retigence Technologies. The Bengaluru-based startup has developed software to solve the overstocking and stockout situations in the retail industry, which it pegs as an $1.3trillion problem and an oppurtunity

Among the major problems when it comes to retail outlets are ” stock out” and managing excess inventory.While if a retailer has low inventory he will be unable to meet the demand , on the other hand an excess of inventory would leave them saddled with extra inventory.. which has to be kept at the warehouses with again has a cost involved with it.. Subsequently this mismatch between demand and supply across the supply chain becomes too huge to manage

This creates a huge backlog across the retailers supply chain which restrict retailers to get timely and accurate information on their sales, stock turn and customer demand. The PRAN™ is designed to give retailers insight into their inventory performance and enable them to maximize sales, profit and inventory availability. By quickly and easily delivering required information to store owners, managers, purchasers and other decision makers, PRAN™ helps retailers enhance decision making ultimately leading to higher sales, gross profit and faster growth.

How does Retigence PRAN software powered by SAP HANA solves this problem. The PRAN ( Predictive Real Time Analytics) provides the following benefits

PRAN™, our Predictive Analytics Engine, is designed to give retailers insight into their inventory performance and enable them to maximise sales, profit, inventory availability and customer satisfaction.

By quickly and easily delivering required information to store owners, purchases and other decision makers, Retigence Analytics engine PRAN™ helps retailers enchance and cuts down times spent on decision making on retail inventory supply chain , ultimately leading to higher sales, gross profit and faster growth.

Our PRAN analytics engine ensures one demand retail forecasting , thereby helping retailer to focus on sales and marketing, meeting there revenue targets without ” the additional burden of having to “ predict” store inventory by hunch or by taking a finl decesion only based on the basis of analyses made by the inventory manager.

Our Philiosophy is ” You manage your sales.. and while Retigence manages and align your inventory with real time demand

powered by SAP HANA provides businesses to to meet their inventor demand with amazing accuracy thereby reducing stock out or excess inventory.

Traditionally most business are unable to predict demand of their products which may either result in under stocking ( stockout ) of end up with exceed margins, which hampers their margins, productivity and cash flow apart from impacting their revenue and loss of business oppurtinity

lack of predicting forecasting of management is the number one business challenge thats faces modern day retail and companies are struggling to meet” the right inventory across their supply chain . According to IHL global retail companies loose $trillion annually because of lack of accurate and real time inventory forecasting